The list is topped by Jobs, whom Fortune calls “our generation’s quintessential entrepreneur. Visionary. Inspiring. Brilliant. Mercurial” while Gates is second for turning “concepts into companies” and changing the “face of business”.

“The outsourcer” Murthy, who has been ranked tenth, “proved that India could compete with the world by taking on the software development work that had long been the province of the West,” the US magazine said.

The “visionary founder” of Infosys, has built “one of the largest companies in India, helping to transform that economy and put it on the world stage”, it noted citing his lesson that an organisation starting from scratch must coalesce around a team of people with an enduring value system.

“As one of six co-founders of Infosys and the CEO for 21 years, Murthy helped spark the outsourcing revolution that has brought billions of dollars in wealth into the Indian economy and transformed his country into the world’s back office,” the magazine said.

“It is all about sacrifice today, fulfilment tomorrow,” Murthy, 65, who is now chairman emeritus, is quoted as saying. “It is all about sacrifice, hard work, lots of frustration, being away from your family, in the hope that someday you will get adequate returns from that.”